Oedipus Rex Vs. Antigone

The flaw often leads to a major downfall by its owner. In both “Oedipus Rexes” and “Antigen”, there are three reoccurring hamsters: hubris, irrationality, and unyielding stubbornness. When speaking of hubris, the characters Oedipus and Antigen come to mind. Hubris is pride or an extreme sense of self-admiration. Oedipus is quoted saying such things as, “l, Oedipus, who all men call great”. His hubris clouds his vision and prevents him from seeing things as they are. Oedipus takes on the act of finding out who the murderer of the king is but when all he evidence points to him, he cannot see it because of his arrogance.

Antigen, Oedipus’ daughter, has the same character flaw. She is arrogant and as power hungry as Oedipus was. She decides to go against Screen’s decry and bury her traitorous brother. Antigen believes herself to be so high above others, she even says she’s above the king himself. “Croon is not strong enough to stand in my way”. It appears that Antigen wants to bury her brother so she can become a martyr. She tells her sister, Kinsmen, not to help her so she can get all the credit of defying the king and doing what is lusciously right.

Irrationality is evident in both works as well. We see it first with Oedipus. We see him not listening to or acting according to reason. Oedipus blames Croon for the murder because Croon was the one who recommended Ternaries to Oedipus. When Ternaries began to say things to Oedipus that he didn’t like, he assumed that Croon told the soothsayer to say these things. We also see it at the end when the truth finally hits the tragic hero. He rushes into the castle looking for Coast and “rips [the doors] off the hinges”. In Antigen, Croon contains the most irrationality.

When he is talking with his son, Hammond, he says he is going to punish both Antigen and Kinsmen. But Kinsmen never did anything to break Screen’s law. A huge parallelism between Oedipus and Croon is their scenes with Ternaries. Croon gets as bent out of shape as Oedipus, mainly because he does not want to hear what is in store for him. The third hamster is unyielding stubbornness. Once again Oedipus shows up as a prime candidate. As stated before, he just doesn’t put all the clues together to find he murdered the king. Coast even says, “In form you look like Alias.

Even when everyone has figured it out, Oedipus turns to the newly horrified Coast and recites the line that say something to degree of don’t worry, I may be a slave but you will not be affected. This statement emphasizes his stubbornness simply because he is the last character to figure it out. Croon best shows the unyielding stubbornness in “Antigen”. He refuses to allow Antigen to love no matter what happens, simply because he doesn’t want to go against what he said. Hammond tries to reason with Croon by telling him that it’s k if he changes his mind.

He goes on to say that the people live Antigen did what she had to do and that they are afraid of the king’s temper. After all this Croon still won’t change his mind. In response to this unyielding temperament, Hammond says that he will take his own life if Antigen died. And yet Croon still doses ;t change. One major literary device Sophocles used to tie the different play together was sins of the father. Often times when a tragic hero reaches his/her catharsis, if their doings have been so terrible, they will curse their line so that the evil will stop.

In “Oedipus Rexes, Oedipus, once he finds that that he has oiled his father and, the king, and has entered the bed of his own mother, he curses his four children. : to waste away in barrenness, unmarried” Sophocles followed through with the curse in “Antigen”. We see that Oedipus’ line ends in this piece. Kinsmen, the youngest daughter, is so traumatized by the events in “Oedipus Rexes” that she becomes a priestess and therefore will never have children. The two sons, Policies and Testicles, wind up dying at the hands of one another in a great civil war. As for Antigen, her death is the worst of all.

Although in “Antigen”, Sophocles establishes a relationship between Hammond and Antigen, Antigen pays the ultimate price for trying to bury her brother. One cannot ignore that fact that Croon was Oedipus’ uncle/brother. Therefore it is safe to assume that with the death of Hammond, there is no hope for even the slightest bit of Oedipus’ blood to be passed on. And thus, the cycle of sins of the father is complete. Sophocles’ plays each have a noble/tragic hero as the main character. The definition of a tragic hero, according to Aristotle, is a man who is neither good nor bad, whose misfortune arises from frailty or error.

They must be prosperous and well known. The tragic hero must fall in front of our eyes. The hero must start off high, fall, and at the end rise up higher than before. A noble hero is the same except he/she does not have as many flaws as the tragic hero. Oedipus was, of course, a tragic hero. Sophocles first describes him as a good and just king. Oedipus saves them from the Sphinx by solving the riddle. When he first takes on the mission to find the killer and purge the land of the plague, he tells Croon to let the people know of the information he has found.

But quickly before our eyes, we see Oedipus’ hamsters shine brighter that those good qualities in the beginning. He soon falls to a level foreshadowed and hinted throughout the work, whereupon after his nonaggression, or awakening comes to his catharsis. He purges his guilt by dashing out his eyes, following through with his curse of banishment, apologizes to Croon, and curses his children. Through this he gains humility, loses his hubris, and even though he blinds himself, he winds up seeing more than more “seeing” people. The tragic hero in Antigen is indubitably Croon.

Like his nephew/brother, Croon has become the king and the reader remembers his good nature from the previous work. But like Oedipus, he falls before like a child taking his first steps. What makes Sophocles’ pieces more interesting is that he falls because of the exact same hamsters as Oedipus. The author even repeats some of the dialogue as if he was trying to emphasize the parallelism between the two. The reader/audience member is introduced to Screen’s thirst for power in “Antigen”. This thirst was non-existent is “Oedipus Rexes”.

Until Croon became ins, he had no political ambitions. He even stated that he liked the earlier triumvirate because he reaped the benefits without the hassle and responsibility. In ‘Antigen”, Croon refuses to bend his word and let Antigen live. Croon ‘s nonaggression occurs much faster than Oedipus’ did. The Chorus tries to reason with Croon telling him that Ternaries might be old but he has never been wrong. Croon quickly realizes this and decides to push away his pride and let Antigen live. As part of Screen’s catharsis, he loses the lives of Antigen, his son, and his wife.

By the time Croon had got to Antigen’s tomb, she had already hung herself. Hammond, who was weeping at her body, decides to take his life if he couldn’t be with Antigen in this world. When Hansom’s mother, Eurydice, learns of his death, she hangs herself just as Coast did in “Oedipus Rexes”. Once all this is made apparent to Croon, he declares that he never wants to see the light of the sun and is lead away just as Oedipus is in the first work. “Oedipus Rexes” and “Antigen” are enhanced by Sophocles’ use of such similar techniques in such different, but connected plays.